Stay With Me
by IncursioSlayne
Summary: A short story. Piper and Keira enter Vault 111, but while there, they are attacked by Brotherhood troops. One fatal moment later brings up a special moment in Piper's life, when she and Keira shared one of their special moments at the Home Plate. FemSole Survivor x Piper One-Shot.


One shot.

Amidst the hail of bullets that suddenly rang through the empty halls of Vault 111, Piper Wright heard that one gunshot that whizzed past her ear. She kept firing, but the minigun continued its hail of death. The storage cage offered no protection. The metal links that had made up the walls of the cage were being shredded. The Brotherhood sergeant, the last of the group that had followed them down there wasn't even aiming properly. The minigun swept away from them and the man inside was screaming in rage.

Blue had shot him with a sniper rifle only moments before. They thought he was dead. But she could see that one of the protective eye pieces had been shattered.

The next shot had to count. Piper leveled her trusted pistol at him.

She squeezed the trigger.

Click.

"Shit, Blue, I'm out!" she screamed.

Another hail of weapon fire burst out – but it came from behind her. It was Keira, firing away with her plasma weapon.

A weapon, Piper thought to herself. They came down here because Blue wanted to pick up something that she had forgotten about. The cryolator, she called it. And it was there on the ground, next to Blue's feet. It looked odd, but no different than the usual assortment of weapons that her love tended to carry with her. Alien pistol, rifles that shot railway spikes, even a small gun that fired telekinetic blasts were all part of the unusual assortment of weapons that Blue had collected over the months.

Piper clamped her hand over the cryolator.

The gunfire came to an end.

She heard the clanking of power armor toppling over.

"Huh…" she started. "I really wish these guys would stop trying to kill us every day."

This whole turn of events really started with Blue accepting the assignment of becoming the Director of The Boogeymen. The Railroad folks weren't too happy with it, what with the Institute having killed many of their agents, but at least they didn't start trying to gun them down. Sanctuary had set up so many defenses, and it hardly halted the advances made by the Brotherhood. Paladin Danse, the man who was more protocol than human, led most of his team eastward when they figured that Keira wasn't there. Danse knew she was there, but maybe somewhere inside of him, he wasn't sure if this was right.

There didn't seem to be any way of talking this out.

"Blue, we can't keep getting ambushed like this. I don't think we'll be able to keep shooting our way out of everything."

"Yea," came the shaky voice of Keira.

"Blue?"

She spun just in time to see Keira tumbling towards her. The full weight of Keira's body crashed into Piper, sending them both to the cold, hard floor.

"Blue! Blue, don't scare me!"

Keira's glasses had fallen off, her dyed white hair obscuring her facial features. She tried to sit up to no avail. Piper scooted against the cage wall, and Keira, weakly, laid her head in Piper's lap. "Must've gotten a lucky shot. Guess he must've read that S.P.E.C.I.A.L book."

"Blue, there isn't time to joke around," Piper clamored to unbuckle the clamps that kept Keira's armor on. It was so sticky…and red. She glanced across the rest of the armor and saw that it had a lot of punctures in it – some of them even dripping blood. But Keira had been shot before. It was nothing that a Stimpak or two couldn't fix. The buckles clicked and she gently peeled away the chest armor.

She wished that she hadn't.

"I can tell by the look on your face that they really messed me up this time."

"Please, Blue, not now," Piper said. There were definitely bullet holes, and her love was definitely bleeding a lot. Her heart pounded in her chest, fearing something that she didn't want to think about. "Stimpak…" she said, trying to purge that horrible, terrible thought out of her mind. They'd both been shot before – more times than either of them could count. But they'd always gotten out of these situations. She found the Stimpak in her coat pocket and yanked it out, tearing some of the fabric along the way. It was their last one; the others had been used as they escaped the Brotherhood. Piper didn't want to think about having a scar – it was bad enough that she had a hickie on her neck that made her incredibly self-conscious as she conducted interviews in Goodneighbor.

She jammed the needle into Keira's chest.

A painful moan escaped Keira's mouth, but not loud enough to arouse suspicion in case there were more Brotherhood followers who had chased them down here. But then another sound escaped her lips – one of agony as Keira's face contorted in agony.

Piper tossed the empty Stimpak and pulled Keira close. She felt her love's blood on her skin, but she didn't care. Keira was breathing heavily now.

Something was wrong.

Keira's voice lowered, but she was still in agony. "What, what is it?!" Piper panicked as she looked at the wounds on Keira. The wounds were being sealed, but something else was going on. "Blue, what is it? What's wrong?"

"The bullets…hot," Keira muttered through clenched teeth. Her eyes were no longer sharp, but inviting; rather, they were tortured. She bit down on her lip hard enough to pierce skin and draw a small drip of blood.

Piper knew what it was. The minigun had incendiary rounds. But that didn't explain why Blue was in so much pain. The Stimpaks should have worked by now. Panicked, Piper pressed her forehead to Keira's. "We're out of the stims. Tell me what to do."

"Just…stay with me for now," Keira said, weakly.

Keira's features relaxed, and she closed her eyes. "This really hurts. I think I'm going to…take a nap here."

"What? No, no, no, no, no, you stay awake with me, Blue."

"Come on, Piper," she said, trying but failing to laugh. "It'll be fine. This is the same place my husband died…I won't die here. It's too…ironic."

"Damn it, Blue. We've made it through worse. You can't just give up now. Come on, I'll give you a hand, and it'll be alright. We'll take baby steps out of here."

"Relax, I'll be fine. I love you, okay?"

With each word, Keira was getting weaker. Her voice softened to a whisper, and then she stopped moving. Her face was completely relaxed, but she didn't seem to be breathing.

No, Piper thought. She couldn't have died. Not here. Super Mutants couldn't kill her. The Deathclaws couldn't finish her. Some jerks from the Brotherhood weren't going to finish her off. She called out her love's name, even tried to move her. But Keira hardly stirred. A soft breath came out, but Keira didn't do more than that. She was surely sleeping. She had to be! This wasn't a place that she could die!

Piper shook her head, whispering Blue's name once more. Her thoughts ran all over the place, so she thought back to a moment that signified a special moment in their lives – probably the best night of both their lives so far.

 _"Blue, I think you're drunk. I've never seen you wear a dress before," Piper said, setting the wine bottle down. "Ever. You gonna tell me what this is all about?"_

 _Keira glanced away from their stove and grinned. She was one hell of a cook – about a good as one could expect when everything in this world was contaminated in some form. Sometimes, she wondered how much of it was learned out in the world that she came from before the bombs fell._

 _"I just wanted to cook up something nice. I like to call it the Silver Shroud Special."_

 _There were some moments where Keira could seem like a grown kid – Piper found it offputting at first, but she grew to love that aspect of Keira. Someone who somehow ended up with the fate of the entire Commonwealth on her shoulders, but wasn't broken by the viciousness of the world state was refreshing. She had some wine in her system, of course, but that had somehow loosened up Keira even more than she was usually._

 _"Silver Shroud, huh? I'm surprised that you didn't wear the costume."_

 _"The Shroud doesn't need to wear her costume every day. Hiding in plain sight would allow the Shroud to surprise her enemies," Keira murmured loudly in her 'Shroud' voice._

 _"Thank god we don't have to do that anymore."_

 _Keira chuckled. "Hey, Kent's working on the costume. Said he was gonna try to make the armor a little bit stronger. Besides, you have that Grognak costume hanging up in your office still, don't you?"_

 _Piper felt a blush on her face. "I-I don't know what you're talking about. Ahem," she reached for her wine bottle. "That was a one time thing."_

 _Keira turned away from the stove. "Oh come on, you loved wearing that costume."_

 _"What?" Piper exclaimed, her voice rising to a high pitch. "No, no, I do not. I was practically naked in that thing."_

 _"Eventually, you were."_

 _"Blue!"_

 _Keira laughed and returned to cooking._

 _Piper had almost choked on her wine. But she noticed something as Keira reached for something on the counter. There on her left hand was the gold band that she'd been wearing for who knows how long. It had been eight months since the two of them had met, and Piper didn't recall ever seeing that ring being taken off. It had always nagged at her that they'd been in this great relationship, but she was still carrying the ring of another person. And maybe it did make Piper a little self-conscious. But she spent time trying not to think about it. It wasn't hard to do when everything in the world was trying to kill you. And maybe she was able to forget about it most of the time. But now that she saw the ring again, her insecurities started to come up._

 _"Hey, can we talk?"_

 _"We…are, aren't we?" Keira said with a wink._

 _"Come on, this is serious. Kinda. Look, I don't know how to mince words, and you know that when I get nervous, I can't beat around the bush."_

 _"Dinner's gonna be ready soon, so I can get away from the stove from a while," Keira approached the table and sat down. "What's up? What are you so nervous for?"_

 _Piper didn't look her in the eyes. "I…uh…well, I just wanted to ask you about…your ring?"_

 _"My ring? What about it?"_

 _Piper frowned. "Look, it's like this…I love you. And it's not just because you are good to me and you keep treating me like I'm special to you…well, maybe that has a lot to do with it, but uh…I want to know something." She reached across the table and grabbed Keira's hands. "I'm worried. Probably as worried as you used to be when you kept asking about us when she first got together. I guess…my own insecurities are making it hard to keep my mind straight."_

 _Keira grinned. It was the same grin that Keira always used when she was talking to her. "There's nothing to be insecure about, Piper. I'm here for you. You know that, right?"_

 _"Yeah…I know. It's just that, you're still wearing your wedding ring."_

 _Slowly, the grin faded, and she could feel Keira pull back a little. It was only a slight movement, but Piper knew that Keira was getting nervous. She continued, "I just want to know if you…if we…you know what, never mind, I wish I hadn't brought it up."_

 _"I think I know what you're getting at, and I want you to know something. He was my husband, yes. And it does hurt if I think about him. I can't lie and say that there aren't days when I don't miss him."_

 _Piper could almost feel her heart starting to break._

 _"But Piper, regardless of my feelings towards him, that's a life that I will never get back. He was a good man, and a great husband, but that's in the past. I can't move forward with my life if I'm constantly thinking about him. I couldn't…give you everything that I am if I was still thinking about him all the time."_

 _Their eyes met across the table._

 _Piper opened her mouth to speak, but Keira quickly cut her off, "I'm not using you to fill a void in my heart. I really do love you. And right now, I don't want to have it any other way. This ring…I'm keeping it because I want a reminder of how dangerous the Institute is, and that I need to find my son. Nobody could replace you, Piper."_

 _"Blue…I don't know what to say."_

 _"You don't have to say anything, Piper. I mean, you could come over here and kiss me."_

 _"Hah…and here I thought you were trying to be girly."_

 _"I am girly. With guns," Keira said with a smile. "And a hot bath on the roof."_

 _"You know that the security guards are going to watch. Again."_

 _"Let them. All that matters is that we have a moment to relax. The food is still going to be a while, but it won't burn the place down while we're bathing."_

 _Tomorrow, the two of them decided, would be time to head to the Glowing Sea. Strong would be coming with them. But tonight…oh yes, tonight, the two of them would relax and pretend that the world didn't exist. Tonight, they would spend the hours with each other, with no worry in the world._

…If only their lives could've stayed that way. Keira was sleeping in her lap, but her breaths were soft and ragged. Piper wished that they hadn't gone to the Glowing Sea. Then maybe they wouldn't have ended up dealing with as much stuff as they had. Clearly, the Director couldn't be bothered to send Coursers to save his own mother, otherwise they wouldn't be in this situation.

"Oh Blue…I'm so scared. Please don't leave me. I need you."

She hugged Keira's body close and kissed her cold lips.

"Please pull through. I can't lose you."


End file.
